Posts Tagged ‘My Lai Massacre’

On the 16-March-1968 a detatchment of US troops under the direct command of Lt. William Calley entered the village of My Lai and slaughtered and raped old women, children, and entire families.

Some 500 civilians were slaughtered.

TheUSAtook no meaningful action against the 18 men charged and the 19th.Lt. Calleyreceived little more than a tokenary punishment.

Do note that not one of the senior officers in the line of command EVER stood trial for this obscene action of cowardice and brutality.

John Kerryas a young man responded to the Senate Enquiry and claimed it was The USA at fault and no one man should be held responsible for a faulty system:

Many years later that same John Kerry as a Senator voted for the corrupt and unlawfull invasion and brutal massacres ofIraqunder the same irresponsible gung ho code.

It is this same John Kerry who succeeded to the job of Sec. State Hillary Rodham Clinton & now represents the USA on the global stage!

Is this what is meant by power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely?

Please take a moment and think of those wretched civilians slaughtered in My Lai 44 years ago today.

Then take a moment to consider the slaughter in the same cause of forcing people to practice some obscene concept to suit old men in Government – forcing them in Iraq and Afghanistan, Palestine, Libya, Mali & so many more to adopt a given model of democracy or be shot or tortured if they resist.

. .

Courtesy of Wikipedia entry:

Commanders

Lieutenant Colonel Frank A. Barker – commander of Task Force Barker who ordered the destruction of the village and controlled the artillery preparation and combat assault from his helicopter; he was killed in Vietnam on June 13, 1968, before the investigation had begun.[4][55]

Captain Eugene Kotouc – military intelligence officer who provided some of the information on which the Mỹ Lai combat assault was based; together with Medina and a South Vietnamese police officer, he tortured and executed suspects later that day.[15]

Captain Ernest Medina – company commander of Charlie Company who planned, ordered, and supervised the execution of the operation in Sơn Mỹ village.[56]

1st Platoon, Charlie Company

Sergeant Michael Bernhardt – refused to participate in the killing of civilians. Captain Medina threatened Sergeant Bernhardt to deter him from writing to Bernhardt’s congressman to expose the massacre and, as a result, was allegedly given more dangerous duties such as point duty on patrol.[57] Later he would help expose and detail the massacre in numerous interviews with the press, and he served as a prosecution witness in the trial of Medina, where he was subjected to intense cross examination by defense counsel F. Lee Bailey. Recipient of the New York Society for Ethical Culture‘s 1970 Ethical Humanist Award.[58]

Esequiel Torres – previously had tortured and hanged an old man because Torres found his bandaged leg suspicious. He and Roschevitz (described below) were involved in the shooting of a group of ten women and five children in a hut. Later he was ordered by Calley to shoot a number of people with a M60 machine gun; he fired a burst before refusing to fire again, after which Calley took his weapon and opened fire himself.[citation needed]

Frederick Widmer – Widmer, who has been the subject of pointed blame, is quoted as saying, “The most disturbing thing I saw was one boy—and this was something that, you know, this is what haunts me from the whole, the whole ordeal down there. And there was a boy with his arm shot off, shot up half, half hanging on and he just had this bewildered look in his face and like, ‘What did I do, what’s wrong?’ He was just, you know, it’s, it’s hard to describe, couldn’t comprehend. I, I shot the boy, killed him and it’s—I’d like to think of it more or less as a mercy killing because somebody else would have killed him in the end, but it wasn’t right.”[60]

Sergeant Minh – ARVN interpreter who confronted Captain Medina about the number of civilians that were killed. Medina replied, “Sergeant Minh, don’t ask anything – those were the orders.”[61]

Gary Roschevitz – grabbed an M16 rifle from Varnado Simpson to kill five Vietnamese prisoners.[62]According to various witnesses, he later forced seven women to undress with the intention of raping them. When the women refused, he reportedly shot them.[63]

British Politicians with pens and treachery, in pursuit of their own agenda and greed, have done more damage to the liberty, freedoms, rights and democracy of the British peoples than any army in over 1,000 years.

The disastrous effects of British politicians selling Britain into the thrall of foreign rule by theEUfor their own personal rewards has damaged the well-being of Britain more than the armies of Hitler and theFranco – German– Italian axis of 1939 – 1945.